#IReadsYou Review: CASE CLOSED Volume 69

CASE CLOSED, VOL. 69
VIZ MEDIA – @VIZMedia

MANGAKA: Gosho Aoyama
TRANSLATION: Tetsuichiro Miyaki
LETTERS: Freeman Wong
EDITOR: Shaenon K. Garrity
ISBN: 978-1-4215-9867-3; paperback (January 2019); Rated “T+” for “Older Teen”
184pp, B&W, $9.99 U.S., $12.99 CAN, £6.99 UK

Detective Conan is a Japanese detective manga series written and illustrated by Gosho Aoyama.  It has been serialized in Shogakukan's Weekly Shonen Sunday since January 1994.  VIZ Media is publishing an English-language edition of the manga as a paperback graphic novel series, entitled Case Closed, under its “Shonen Sunday” imprint.

Case Closed focuses on Jimmy Kudo, ace high school detective.  Kudo is trailing two suspicious men in black (named “Gin” and “Vodka”), when the nefarious duo attacks him.  The two men administer to Jimmy a mysterious substance that physically transforms the teen into a first grader.  While searching for a cure, Jimmy adopts a new identity, becoming elementary school student, Conan Edogawa.  Acting alone and sometimes with his friends, the Junior Detective League (JDL), Jimmy/Conan continues to solve criminal cases and mysteries.

As Case Closed, Vol. 69 (“The Shape of Murder”) opens, Conan is accompanying the renowned Detective Richard Moore (known as “Sleeping Moore”) and his daughter, Rachel, to “Kora Inn,” a remote inn located in the village of Kuchibashi in Gunma.  They are responding to a note purported to be from an “accused murder,” who is seeking Moore's help to clear his name.  The trio will soon discover a new murder, one that may be connected to a mysterious death near Kora Inn over a decade ago.  Scariest of all, there will be a sighting of the river monster known as the “kappa.”

Then, the Junior Detective League travels with eccentric inventor, Dr. Herschel Agasa, to a hot springs resort.  There, they find murder when a notorious film director is found dead in what appears to be a locked room murder.  Also, the JDL is involved in a classical music-themed mystery at a deserted resort.  The biggest clue the kids find is the music of Bach.

THE LOWDOWN:  I'll start off this review by sayings something familiar:  I love the Case Closed manga.  Of course, you know that, dear readers, because I have been saying that for a long time.

Case Closed Graphic Novel Volume 69 offers three murder mysteries, and begins a fourth mystery that will be concluded in Vol. 70.  The “Kora Inn” mystery is poignant, and it may be one of the saddest resolutions that I have ever come across in Case Closed.  The “hot springs mystery” did not really interest me, and I was only a little more interested in the “White Day” mystery.

The deserted resort/classical music mystery looks to be a grand time.  Tetsuichiro Miyaki shows off his sharp translation skills in this case that closes out Vol. 69.  As usual, Freeman Wong's unique lettering captures the eccentricities of this manga, and I am starting to believe that it is one of the reasons I keep coming back for the next case.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Readers looking for fun mystery fiction will want to investigate the “Shonen Sunday” detective manga, Case Closed.

A
8 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


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